Against fallacy-spotting

In spaces where people deliberately learn critical thinking, it’s common for people to learn a list of logical fallacies–in much the same way that one might learn a list of names of Pokémon. Then, to reinforce this knowledge, we start spotting the fallacies in the wild. It’s a good learning exercise. But once all is said and done, and you’ve successfully internalized the list, what then? Is fallacy-spotting a good way of engaging with arguments?

I don’t think so. I’ve long said that it’s obnoxious and unproductive to explicitly name fallacies in the course of an argument. But even if you keep it to yourself, I think fallacies are an extremely limited and misleading way of engaging with arguments.

[Read more…]

Origami: Fish Curler

Fish Curler

Fish Curler, designed by Ekaterina Lukasheva

The Fish Curler is one of the most elegant designs in modular origami.  It’s an all-timer, a classic.  There are instructions publicly available, and they fit into a single page.

The units are attached by simply wrapping them together in a spiral.  There are a number of modular designs based on this same principle, but none so simple and effective.

How I developed a game

I made a video game. I have not published, but I’m currently looking for playtesters.  In fact, I’m trying to get playtesters right here and now, please let me know if you’re interested!

It’s a small puzzle strategy game titled “Moon Garden Optimizer”. I’m sure say more about the specifics of the game design at a later time.  Today I’m sharing my development process up to this point.

moon garden optimizer, recent screenshot

A screenshot of my game

[Read more…]

Refreshed opinions on AI art

A couple years ago, I wrote several posts about AI art. But AI is a moving target, and there’s no sense to committing to one single view about it. So let’s reconsider.

1. AI art as theft

The argument against AI images that has had the most staying power, is the idea that training an image generator on art is stealing from the artists. I’ve become somewhat more sympathetic to this argument over time.
[Read more…]

Link Roundup: April 2025

Conspiracy | Contrapoints (video, 2:40 hours) – Back in 2016, Contrapoints got a reputation for “deradicalizing” people who fell down the alt-right pipeline.  But for people who adopt conspiratorial modes of thinking, there’s virtually no hope.  And conspiracism is frightfully common even in “ordinary” times, when there isn’t an establishment political party outright promoting it.

My instinctive reaction to conspiracism is to identify where people on “my” side seem to slide into it.  Which is not necessarily helpful, but at least I feel like I have more power over it.

For example, I think about leftists who say that Trump’s economic policies are so absurdly bad that he must know they are bad, and he’s trying to crash the economy on purpose.  Okay, but is that what the typical Trump fan believes?  Because Trump is basically his own biggest fan.  If the typical Fox-viewing person can believe absurd things about tariffs, Trump can very well do so too.  Oh, of course it’s plausible that Trump is not high on his own supply of lies, that’s hardly wild conjecture.  It’s fine if people believe that, it ultimately doesn’t matter whether Trump is nefariously incompetent or incompetently nefarious.  But I’d ask, what attracts some people to the more conspiratorial hypothesis.

Indiana Jones and the Objective Existence of God | Jacob Geller (video, 28 min) – I’ve never actually seen these movies (and tbh they always looked like trash, sorry nerds).  But Jacob Geller talks about how the Christian God (as well as Shiva) obviously exist within the Indiana Jones universe.  But Indiana Jones still puts on airs of being a rational skeptic.  I guess Indiana Jones’ rationality is just an aesthetic attribute that the story uses to place him into a certain character archetype.

[Read more…]

Macroeconomics with Peter Navarro

Back when I started working in finance in 2020, I remarked to a colleague that I felt pretty ignorant about all this finance stuff. So they suggested a basic online course in macroeconomics. That course: “The Power of Macroeconomics: Economic Principles in the Real World” taught by Dr. Peter Navarro.

In case the name doesn’t ring a bell, Dr. Navarro is currently the senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, in the Trump administration. He is seemingly the only economist in the world who thinks universal tariffs are a good idea. That guy. Even at the time I took the course, Navarro had been the director of the White House National Trade Council during the first Trump administration. But I swear, I didn’t realize who he was until 2022, when he was arrested in relation to the conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.

No deep dive here–I’m not going back through the course to sift for oddities. This is just storytime, recalling what I can about Dr. Peter Navarro from several years ago.

[Read more…]

Origami: Jagged Bomb

Jagged Bomb

Jagged Bomb, designed by me

I’m going to the East Bay Origami Convention this weekend!  I’ll be teaching this model.

I specifically designed the model in order to teach it.  Normally, modular origami takes a while to make, and people wouldn’t finish within the session.  Especially something like this model which has 14 units.  But this is just about the fastest thing you could possibly make with 14 sheets of paper, so I’m hoping some people will be able to finish it.

The mathematically inclined may raise eyebrows at 14.  What symmetrical shape has 14 components?  And it’s pretty hard to tell from looking at it, because it’s so chaotic.  Ask me in the comments if you can’t figure it out.

I also made diagrams.